San Francisco seeks stop sign on driverless cars
A Cruise self-driving vehicle in San Francisco on Aug. 3, 2023. Photo by Achille Abboud/IMAGO via Reuters
San Francisco isn’t going to take last week’s robotaxi decision by the California Public Utilities Commission lying down. Joined by the city’s transit authority board, fire department and board of supervisors, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu filed motions on Wednesday to halt the unrestricted expansion of autonomous vehicles for commercial use.
- Chiu, in a statement: “We have seen that this technology is not yet ready, and poor AV performance has interfered with the life-saving operations of first responders. San Francisco will suffer serious harms from this unfettered expansion, which outweigh whatever impacts AV companies may experience from a minimal pause in commercial deployment.”
Last Friday, the commission voted to permit Alphabet’s Waymo and General Motors’ Cruise to expand their driverless car operations by allowing them to charge passengers for driverless rides without a human safety driver present, at all hours.
The two requests (one for Waymo and the other for Cruise) seek to “preserve the status quo” while the city seeks a rehearing, said Chiu. He argues that the commission “abused its discretion” in two ways:
- It voted to expand services without adding measures to address known issues with performance and public safety caused by the cars.
- It failed to comply with the California Environmental Quality Act because it should know that by allowing several thousands robotaxis in San Francisco without restriction, this “may result in significant environmental impacts.”
Thursday, a commission spokesperson told Calmatters that it is “evaluating” the motions, which “will be taken up by the full panel as soon as practicable.”
The motions, first reported by the San Francisco Chronicle, cite as evidence several occurrences in which robotaxis obstructed emergency vehicles — stalling at intersections, driving into oncoming lanes, blocking water supplies from firetrucks and rolling over firehouses.
And just last weekend during San Francisco’s popular Outside Lands music festival, Cruise cars caused a major backup after stopping in the middle of a large street, the Chronicle reported. The company cited “bandwidth constraints” caused by the large number of festival attendees overloading wireless networks.
The city is expected to file an application for rehearing “in the coming weeks.”